The news that the King of Games' deck had lost to the person from Ra Yellow spread through the entire school in less than a day. The duel had been recorded by students at the scene, and within twenty-four hours, almost everyone had watched the footage.
While the students gained both experience and amusement from the recording, many were also left in deep thought. Dimitri had played the King of Games' deck quite skillfully, yet he hadn't managed to land a single complete attack throughout the entire match, let alone touch his opponent's Life Points.
If even the King of Games' deck couldn't handle those troll tactics, what did the future of the dueling world hold? Of course, not everyone was so pessimistic.
"Dimitri's performance was quite impressive; he allowed us to see the style of the King of Games' deck," the academy's renowned Kaiser Zane commented during a conversation, his words quickly recorded and relayed by those present.
"But no matter how skillfully one uses it, it is ultimately not their own deck. A duelist can only unleash full power with a deck constructed from their own heart. The King's deck can likely only radiate its true brilliance in the hands of Yugi Muto himself."
This sentiment received a great deal of agreement, and even Professor Crowler gave it a thumbs-up. Of course, most students of this era probably didn't know that the owner of that deck had already failed to handle troll tactics years ago...
After the match, Dimitri returned the deck. Following a careful review of the duel, he finally summarized two critical mistakes.
First, he should not have discarded Kuriboh on the first turn. When he activated the effect of Royal Straight Slasher to discard Level 1 to 5 monsters from his deck, he had chosen Kuriboh as his Level 1 monster. Consequently, he suffered repeated divine punishment from Ra-Kuriboh throughout the duel.
Second, his mind was not firm enough. He had wavered from his original path the moment he saw an opportunity to get his hands on the King of Games' deck.
As expected, the only true path was to steadfastly learn from the dueling style of that man in Ra Yellow! After much reflection, Dimitri felt his past mimicry hadn't been thorough enough.
He had only imitated the tactics and internal logic, but that wasn't enough. He needed to imitate everything from the outside in the clothing, the hairstyle, and even the behavioral habits had to be perfectly mirrored.
Soon, new rumors began to circulate within the academy: that man from Ra Yellow had recently acquired a "body double."
Jaden was actually somewhat dissatisfied with how quickly Dimitri had returned the deck. He had a subtle feeling that someone had snatched his cards again.
However, it wasn't a big deal. The next day, a transfer student arrived at the Slifer Red dorm. Jaden quickly discovered that the newcomer was actually a young girl disguised as a boy, named Blair Flannigan. When the exposed Blair begged Jaden to keep her secret, Jaden's lips curled into a mischievous, slightly devious smile.
"Blair, you wouldn't want anyone else knowing you're a girl in disguise, would you?"
Blair asked nervously, "Then what do you want?"
"It's simple." Jaden smiled confidently and pulled out his Duel Disk. He expressed that his dueling addiction was acting up, and she had to play with him.
Blair: "..."
Regardless, Jaden, having found someone to play cards with, quickly forgot about the Dimitri incident and happily immersed himself back into academy life.
That same week, during a school-wide assembly, Chancellor Sheppard mentioned an upcoming competition against a sister school.
"Last year, Zane from the second year represented our school and secured a victory, bringing us great honor," Chancellor Sheppard said with a smile. "This year's representative hasn't been decided yet. Any student is a possibility. Keep working hard, everyone."
"Alright!" Jaden was full of energy after hearing the speech. "Let's aim for the representative spot together!"
"No, even if it's you, Big Brother, I think the representative will still be my brother," Syrus said with inexplicable confidence.
Yugen didn't say a word. However, he knew that according to the original story, the North Academy would intentionally send a first-year student to avoid the ace card, Kaiser Zane. They would also agree with the main branch that this side must also send a first-year. Thus, it would eventually come down to a competition between himself and Jaden for the slot.
And the opponent, barring any surprises, would likely be Chazz, returning from his travels after leaving the main campus.
The duel with Jaden to determine the representative would likely happen within the next week or two. The official competition would follow in the third week.
Yugen had a premonition. During his last encounter with Chazz, he could feel that Chazz had made significant progress compared to before they entered the academy. After this round of external training, Chazz would likely be even stronger.
But Yugen's progress during his half-semester at the academy was equally rapid. He felt that compared to when he first arrived, he had achieved a breakthrough equivalent to a higher realm of existence.
The most prominent sign was that he was becoming increasingly bold when adjusting his deck construction. In the past, the thought of "will this card brick my hand" would always come first. Now, that thought appeared less and less, replaced by "this card will be useful in such-and-such a situation."
It wasn't just his personal strength as a duelist that had grown; the expansion of his card collection brought obvious improvements. Lately, he hadn't just been checking the academy store's new arrivals daily; he had also made some internal purchases from Industrial Illusions.
For instance, he had acquired some rare cards that Yakō Tenma had used in their duel. Cards like Learned Elf, which allowed a draw when sent to the Graveyard, and even the original manga version of Tenma's signature Angel O7, were limited cards that couldn't be obtained anywhere outside of Industrial Illusions.
Then, he found an exceptionally high-value rare card: Raiza the Storm Monarch.
[Raiza the Storm Monarch, Level 6, ATK 2400]
[Effect: When this card is Tribute Summoned: Target 1 card on the field; return that target to the top of the deck.]
The Monarch series!
Even modern players who hadn't lived through that era would have likely heard of the past glory of the Monarchs. After the Chaos deck's three consecutive world championships, the deck that opened the next era of world champions was exactly the Monarch Control deck a build centered around the famous Monarch series.
Furthermore, this series had made appearances in the GX anime. It was just that this archetype seemed a bit rare here; Raiza was the first Monarch Yugen had collected. Back in the day, a specialized deck built around just this one Monarch was already quite powerful.
Having collected a copy of Raiza, Yugen expanded his "to-be-collected" list and quickly drafted several simple new ideas for deck construction. He would see if there was a chance to gather the remaining Monarchs later; building a Monarch Control deck would be quite nice.
However, looking from Hand Destruction to Chaos, then to Metamorphosis Chaos Phoenix, and potentially completing the Monarch series next...
Without realizing it, it seemed he was treading the path toward a World Champion Deck Completionist Achievement?
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